Eddie Hearn has promoted some of the biggest fights in world boxing over the last decade, but admits that not all of them have make him a profit.
The first huge card that truly put Hearn and Matchoom on the map and got boxing back into the mainstream consciousness was, famously, Carl Froch versus George Groves in front of 80, 000 people at Wembley back in 2013. It sold out in a day and since then Hearn has put on a series of sold-out stadium shows with Anthony Joshua, promoted huge Canelo fights in the US and even hugely popular influencer fights involving Jake Paul.
Speaking to The Overlap, he was asked about the biggest mistake he has made in boxing.
“Probably the biggest mistake I’ve made, after Anthony Joshua lost to Andy Ruiz JR, people were like ‘oh Matchroom is on the ropes, what’s happening here’ so I wanted to bounce back with something big.”
He then detailed the fight that cost him and which his father and Matchroom founder Barry Hearn has never allowed him to forget.
“So there was a fight between Vasily Lomachenko, who was like a God of boxing at that stage, and Luke Campbell who we represented and was Olympic Gold medalist. I just spent too much on the fight. I wanted to bring Lomachenko to London, I was in love with him as a fighter but not really understanding his commercial value. We did very well, sold out the O2, but the pay-per-view didn’t hit the numbers and we were left with a big hole. Probably a million quid.”
Although he might not have a crystal ball when it comes to predicting the numbers his shows might do, Hearn has shown some mystic qualities by predicting that the Dan Azeez versus Joshua Buatsi fight wouldn’t happen a full 10 days before the cancellation was announced.